


The Friend From Beyond the Wall

by PoH



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst and Humor, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 07:40:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15335067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoH/pseuds/PoH
Summary: Having failed to bring Roxas back from the Digital Twilight Town, and getting the order to eliminate him from Xemnas, Axel needed to get away from the Organization for a bit.  That's when he discovered something strange on Sunset Hill- right around the time that Roxas started exploring the same area in the Digital World for the "Seven Wonders of Twilight Town."





	The Friend From Beyond the Wall

**Author's Note:**

> I started replaying Kingdom Hearts 2 earlier this week and had a hard time getting past the "Friend From Beyond the Wall" wonder in Day 5. This was the result.

Axel couldn’t remember exactly when he’d first visited Twilight Town, nor could he figure out why he kept coming back to it even when he didn’t have a mission there. Maybe because it felt warmer than the World That Never Was, literally and figuratively. The ice cream tasted great, the people always acted friendly, and the view from the ledge of the clock tower was phenomenal. For years, he returned to Twilight Town and sat on the ledge to watch the sunset whenever he needed to get away from the rest of the Organization.

But now, without Roxas, he couldn’t enjoy the clock tower, the ice cream, or any of his other favorite places in Twilight Town. He tried visiting and found himself constantly turning his head as if to talk to somebody, and nobody else was there. And then he’d remember that Roxas might’ve still been there if he hadn’t messed everything up. And then he’d feel a faint sense of resentment, because he’d tried to keep his best friend happy in the Organization, so why was it _his_ fault that Roxas had to be so stubborn and risk everything to find out more about who he was, when he wasn’t going to like the answers?

So, the clock tower was out. Instead of going to sit on its ledge, Axel went inside the train station to visit Sunset Hill. Sometimes he’d thought about bringing Roxas there too, either after work or during a vacation day. But it just never happened for one reason or another. And now they probably never would. Axel clenched his fists. They would. He’d find a way to talk to Roxas when the Organization sent him back into the digital version of Twilight Town.

As the train went through the city and over the bridge that connected the two halves of Twilight Town, Axel looked out the window and thought about the digital one. It looked and felt so much like the real one that it was scary. He wondered what Roxas was doing in there and whether he was riding a digital version of the same train with the kids that he mistakenly believed were his friends.

The train arrived at Sunset Hill. Axel got out and wandered around. This area of town was even quieter than the rest of it. People started opening up the little stores that lined the sidewalks. A couple of kids chased each other with Struggle bats.  Otherwise, there was nobody around. He avoided eye contact with everyone and turned down an empty street.

Something caught his eye. There was a space between two buildings that looked like an alley, except that it was closed off by a brick wall on the other side. Inside, someone had left his or her ball behind. It reminded him of the ball that the kids used to play Grandstander on the other side of Twilight Town, where they’d try to see who could keep it up in the air the longest before it hit the ground.

Roxas used to love watching people play that game.  He’d gotten pretty good at it before he left the Organization.

Axel kicked the ball hard. He expected it to bounce off the brick wall and roll away, and he’d already started to turn around when something else happened that startled him.

The ball went right through the wall and vanished.

Axel stared at the wall for a moment. The ball didn’t come back, so he went over and pressed his hands against the bricks. They felt solid. They should have knocked the ball back towards him. But they hadn’t.

He took a step back, thought it over, and immediately went to go find another ball. There happened to be a vendor nearby selling toys. Axel bought three Grandstander balls, returned to the wall, and threw one of them towards it.

It vanished, just like the first one.

Axel scratched the back of his head. Where could the balls have possibly gone?

When they didn’t come back, he picked up the other two balls and prepared to throw them both at the same time, just to see if both would disappear.

* * *

Roxas ran through another Sunset Hill, unaware that he was exploring a fake Twilight Town with fake versions of people he didn’t truly know. He, Hayner, Pence, and Olette had all spread out to investigate the so-called “Seven Wonders of Twilight Town” for their independent study project.

He paused to look at the map that Pence drew for him. There was one more left: “the Friend From Beyond the Wall.” According to Pence’s notes, the townspeople claimed that they often found balls lying in the alley. And sometimes they swore they saw balls come flying through the brick wall at the end of the alley.

And sure enough, just as Roxas approached the area, a ball came flying past him. But there was nobody in the alley.

He walked towards the brick wall, but had to jump out of the way when another ball came flying through it. “What the…?” he started to say, but before he could get any closer, two more balls came flying out of the wall. He dodged one and got smacked in the face by the other. “How is this even…?” Another ball shot out of the wall and knocked him off his feet.

So Roxas ran back to the entrance of the alley and positioned himself out of harm’s way. This was definitely a “Wonder” worth investigating.

* * *

“I’m sorry, sir, did you say you wanted to buy the _entire cart?_ ” asked the woman selling the Grandstander balls.

“You got it,” replied Axel.

“…why?”

He paused for a split second. “It’s for science.”

“O…kay…”

She counted out all of the munny he carried, then recounted it. Then she recounted it a third time. He had enough to buy them, and soon he had a stack of Grandstander balls waiting to get sent through the Mystical Wall of Bricks.

He’d already successfully sent two balls through the wall at the same time. Now, he snapped his fingers to summon a couple of Assassin Nobodies. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” he told them, “You each pick a ball. We’re going to throw all three of them at that wall as soon as I say ‘go.’ Got it memorized?”

 _Why, my liege?_ asked one of the Assassins.

“Because I said so. It’s an experiment. That’s what the Organization does.”

* * *

Roxas waited. Nothing seemed to be coming out of the wall anymore. “Is that it?” he asked out loud. Slowly, he walked over to the brick wall. He reached out to touch the bricks, and…

WHAM!

…three balls came shooting out at the same time, hitting him so hard that they knocked him back towards the entrance to the alley. He struggled to get back up, just in time for another ball to fly out of the wall and knock him down again.

* * *

“No, not yet!” Axel groaned. The Dusk that threw the ball hung its head. “I said to wait for the rest of us! Man, why can’t you guys ever follow simple instructions?”

He hadn’t actually summoned the Dusks. The two of them must’ve been patrolling Twilight Town for Xemnas when they passed by and decided they wanted to participate in the experiment too.

“Okay, so now we make five.” Axel paced between them and the stack of balls. “Yeah. Let’s do this. Everyone ready? And remember, we’re throwing them at the _exact same time_.”

* * *

Roxas brushed himself off. “Okay, this is definitely going in our report,” he told himself. He started to walk away, but then he heard the whooshing sound of more balls coming. He spun around and screamed, “SERIOUSLY?” just before all five balls collided with him.

“Okay. That’s it. You asked for it, whatever you are.”

* * *

“Man, I wonder where these things keep going?” Axel thought out loud. The Assassins and Dusks didn’t answer. Roxas would have had some kind of theory. He would’ve actually been having fun with this, not simply following orders like the lesser Nobodies. 

Axel sighed. “Okay. I think that’s enough for…”

All of a sudden, a ball came flying out of the wall and smacked him in the side of the head.

“OW!” He turned back quickly. Nothing else came out of the wall. When he went back to feel the bricks, they still appeared to be solid. “ _What_ is up with this thing?” he wondered.

There was only one way to find out. He gestured to the Assassins, and together they sent three more balls through the brick wall.

* * *

“COME ON!” Roxas shouted, as the three balls sent him flying back to the entrance of the alley. He quickly got back up and flung one of them back. “This isn’t fair! I can’t throw as many as you can, you stupid magic wall!” 

* * *

Axel easily dodged the next ball that came flying through the bricks. “What? Only one? This magic wall is kind of pathetic.” He grinned at the lesser Nobodies. “Okay, guys, let’s go for five again.”

* * *

Roxas dropped to the ground to dodge the five new balls that came through the wall. “All right, if that’s how you’re gonna play…” He picked up two at a time and flung them, one right after the other.

* * *

“Wow. Another one all by itself. I’m really scar…” Axel didn’t notice the second ball coming out until it knocked him into the pile of the other balls that he’d bought from the cart. “TWO?”

* * *

Roxas tossed one of the Grandstander balls up in the air as he waited for something else to happen. “Is that it?” he taunted the brick wall, “Is that all you’ve got for me?”

Six balls flew out of the wall.

“AHHHHHHHHH!”

Once he’d gotten back up, Roxas ran back and forth, picking up the balls and rapidly throwing them back at the wall. He couldn’t throw them all at the same time, so this would have to do. 

“Take _that,_ Magic Wall!”

* * *

“C’mon now, when are you gonna step up your game?” Axel asked the magic wall.

Two balls came out. He dodged them both. “I _said_ , when are you going to…”   And then a third one pelted him in the chest.

“OW! Okay, I take that- OW! Stop- OW! Why don’t you- OW! Okay, I’m sorr- OW!”

When the balls finally stopped coming through, Axel straightened up, summoned some more Assassin Nobodies, and gave them every single ball in the pile.

“You’re going _down_ , Magic Wall!”

* * *

Meanwhile, in his secret lab, DiZ observed the digital Twilight Town he had created and used to trap Roxas. “What is that fool doing?” he muttered.

“Something wrong?” Riku approached him from behind.

DiZ spun his chair around, turning his back away from the large monitor. “The Nobodies have discovered another entry point into my data world, but they don’t seem to realize it. Look at them!”

Riku leaned over the chair to watch Axel and Roxas unknowingly throwing the balls back and forth at each other through the brick wall. He snorted. “How long have they been doing that?”

“For several minutes. It doesn’t matter. I’m sealing it off.” He typed some coding into the computer. Riku noticed the wall shimmer and fritz out for a moment; but the Nobodies didn’t react, so they must not have been able to see it. DiZ shook his head. “How could that man spend so much time throwing objects at the wall and not realize what he had discovered? What was he hoping to accomplish?”

Riku shrugged. “Maybe they were just having some fun.”

“They are Nobodies. Without hearts, they are incapable of having fun.”

Riku didn’t have anything to say to that. In any case, the problem had been fixed, so he went back to check on Sora.

* * *

Roxas had almost finished throwing all the balls back through the Magic Wall. He picked up the last one and flung it as hard as he could.

But it bounced off the bricks and went flying back towards him.

“Huh?!” Roxas dodged it. It flew past him and landed in the street. He heard a familiar gasp, and then Pence came around the corner to join him.

“Oh, it’s just you, Roxas,” he said with a laugh, “Were you throwing a ball?”

“Uh…”

“That ball flew out of nowhere and totally startled me. Hey, I know! This explains one of those Seven Wonders!”

“No, it…” Roxas hesitated. With the way things had been going for the past week, it almost made sense that the brick wall would stop working as soon as somebody else showed up. He stared at it, but nothing else came out.

 _Ha_ , he found himself thinking, _I win._

* * *

“Ready? One…two…THREE!”

Axel and the lesser Nobodies threw every single ball at the brick wall.

And every single ball slammed into the bricks and flew back towards them.

“WHAT?” Axel yelled. He dropped down to the ground- but not fast enough. The other Nobodies tried to get away too, and they all ended up smacking into each other and got buried underneath the Grandstander balls.

Axel groaned. “I think we finally broke the wall, guys.” He glared at it and shook his head. “All right. You win.”

 _Man,_ he thought, _If only Roxas had been here._


End file.
